Inside Llewyn Davis

The Coen Brothers Say They Are Working On A New, Music-Based Film Not Being Written For Usual Repertory Company Of Actors Source: modage wrote this

Last night at the opening of Film Society of Lincoln Center‘s beautiful new facility, the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, we were fortunate enough to catch a conversation between the filmmakers and mutual admirers, the Coen brothers, Joel and Ethan and Noah Baumbach. The theme of the evening was film openings and the trio picked a grouping of their film intros and discussed the who, what, where, when, hows and why of their selected filmography (strangely enough the Coens elected to skip by one of the greatest film openings ever, the eleven minute opening of “Raising Arizona”). During their discussion the sibling filmmakers began discussing their upcoming project when an audience member brought up a quote from nearly 20 years ago when the duo apparently said they would never be interested in a musical because they found playback (having the actors lip sync to prerecorded music) to be tedious and cumbersome. The duo not only didn’t recall saying this—which they apparently had during the “Miller’s Crossing” premiere at the New York Film Festival—but having done a lot of music for “O’ Brother Where Art Thou,” no longer believed this to be the case. The audience member speculated that it might have been during the USO scene in “Barton Fink” which they were filming at the time, but they shot that notion down as well. In doing so, they also revealed some small details of the next project they’re working on which sounds like a music-based offering. Ethan: That’s funny, I don’t remember playback being especially vexed in the USO scene. “O’ Brother Where Art Thou” had a lot of music in it, which was a mix of everything from live performance, I mean on camera performance and a lot of playback and it’s funny we said that. Joel: I actually don’t remember saying that or why we may have said it. There are certain cumbersome aspects of production that you get used to. We used quite a bit of playback on ‘O’ Brother’. Noah: And you’re working on a movie now that has quite a bit of music in it. Joel: Yeah, but I don’t know that it will have any playback. Ethan: Yeah, it will be mostly live I think. Joel: We’re working on a movie now that has music in it but it’s pretty much all performed live, single instrument so it’s hard to tell. Ethan also suggested their new film was “kind of like ‘Margot At The Wedding,’ ” Baumbach’s 2007 film, in which during the immediate opening of the film, the audience is just dropped into a scene already in progress without any setup or establishing shots or narration to let them know what’s going on. He then joked of the project that it might be more up Baumbach’s alley saying, “Noah should be doing it, we shouldn’t.” Later on the brothers suggested this again. “Our LA is very filtered, you can see how we think about it, we have Raymond Chandler and that kind of story where your LA is very real,” Ethan said discussing the city featured both in “The Big Lebowski” and in Baumbach’s “Greenberg.” “Something we would never do, although again the [film] we’re about to do you should be doing.” The brothers brought up this new project even once more which shed slightly more light on their approach to it casting-wise. Joel said, “In adaptations that we’ve done, even if we have ended up using the same actors, they have, generally speaking, been written because the characters are presented to you in an adaptation. So they’re written without regard to who’s necessarily going to play them, from our point of view. But in stories that we’re coming up with ourselves it’s frequently the case that we write for specific people although I have to say, the [musical] thing we’re doing now, we’re not writing specifically for any of the parts which is unusual for us.” And that was it, no titles were given, no other details, but it does sound like a project similar to “A Serious Man” in the way that it’s an original film not being envisioned for any star actors at the moment. It also sounds like this is a brand new project and not one of the many fabled projects that the duo will never end up making (their “Barton Fink” sequel,“Old Fink,” or a Jesus-led “Lebowski” spinoff). This would also rule out adaptations like their screenplay for the remake of “Gambit,” their adaptation of “The Yiddish Policeman’s Union,” or older projects “Suburbicon” and “Hail Casear” both of which were earmarked for their frequent leading man, George Clooney. It’s also definitely not their “horror film” which was being written with Joel’s wife, Frances McDormand in mind for “the monster.” Will it be their next film? We assume so. Aside from say, “To The White Sea” (another project that will probably stay in their past), the Coens have pretty much gotten their way for the last twenty years in that, whatever they started writing, eventually would become their next film. We tried to accost the brothers afterwards, but both them and Baumbach seemed to have friends and family around and digging for more seemed inappropriate. More details will hopefully emerge soon.

A recap from this fascinating conversation will be forthcoming. FYI, if you live in New York and or are visiting this weekend, the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center is putting on some amazing free events that include guests like Mike Nichols, Jason Reitman, Oliver Stone and more.

“Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.” - Andy Warhol

“The myth by no means finds its adequate objectification in the spoken word. The structure of the scenes and the visible imagery reveal a deeper wisdom than the poet himself is able to put into words and concepts” – Friedrich Nietzsche

“The myth by no means finds its adequate objectification in the spoken word. The structure of the scenes and the visible imagery reveal a deeper wisdom than the poet himself is able to put into words and concepts” – Friedrich Nietzsche

The Coen Bros. have an urge for going to the New York folk sceneSource: Los Angeles Times

EXCLUSIVE: The Coen Bros. told an audience at New York's Lincoln Center earlier this month that they were working on a music-related film, but didn't offer any specifics. Now a clearer picture is emerging on the subject of that movie: the Greenwich Village folk scene seen through the eyes of its larger-than-life patriarch.

The Coen Bros. are working on a script that's loosely based on the life of Dave van Ronk, said a source who was briefed on the project but who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to speak on the filmmakers' behalf. Van Ronk is a legendary musician who presided over New York city's iconoclastic coffeehouse period of the mid-20th century, The musician, who died in 2002, was known as the uncle of the coffeehouse scene, a big personality famed for his musical acumen, left-wing politics, general erudition and entertaining storytelling. On his watch, era-defining musicians such as Phil Ochs, Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell were discovered and cultivated. Van Ronk also was a noted blues guitarist in his own right. A spokeswoman for the Coens did not immediately have a comment on her clients' behalf.

Van Ronk, who died in 2002 at the age of 66, published a posthumous memoir three years later titled "The Mayor of MacDougal Street" which a collaborator helped collate. The source said the Coens are drawing in part from material in the book. The Greenwich Village figure, a noted supporter of progressive causes, was also arrested during the neighborhood's famous Stonewall Riots, an event that gives a van Ronk movie a certain relevance in light of the New York State legislature's move to legalize gay marriage on Friday. At the Lincoln Center talk, the Coens compared their movie to "Margot at the Wedding" (Noah Baumbach was on stage with them) suggesting that, like that film, their new work will offer natural dialogue and a feeling of being dropped into the middle of a world. They also said they expected the film to contain musical performances. "We’re working on a movie now that has music in it [that's] pretty much all performed live, single instrument," Joel Coen said.

The Coens, who had what was by far their biggest success box-office ever with the western "True Grit" last year, are often known for tackling wildly disparate subjects from film to film. They've made one notable music-heavy movie before, spotlighting a decidedly different era in "O Brother, Where Art Thou?

“Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.” - Andy Warhol

It looks like the Coens are a little closer to getting their next film mounted, and with producer Scott Rudin—who paired with duo previously on “No Country For Old Men” and “True Grit”—now behind the film, it looks like the trio are gearing up for another run at the Oscars.

The Coens have been teasing their new project for a while, mentioning back in June that they were at work on a music-based project. This was quickly followed up by reports that they’re working on a film loosely based on the life of Dave van Ronk, an American folk singer who presided over the Greenwich Village scene in the 1960s, which give birth to a new wave of artists that included Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and Joni Mitchell. Guru to younger musicians, an encyclopedia of blues and folk history, and an accomplished performer in his own right, Ronk was nicknamed “The Mayor of MacDougal Street” which also served as the title of his posthumous memoir, from which the Coens are said to be drawing their material. Well, it’s all pushing ahead as Variety reveals Rudin is back and StudioCanal is co-financing the film which is now titled “Inside Llewyn Davis.”

It appears the upcoming film is sticking to its “loose” inspiration with the writing/directing pair coming up with a new name for their central character. However, we’re mostly curious to see how they will approach the music in the film. Joel Coen previously suggested that the music in ‘Davis’ would be “pretty much all performed live, single instrument,” while longtime cinematographer Roger Deakins stated earlier in the year that they were going for a “16mm Ricky Leacock, D.A. Pennebaker type of documentary” in the style they were looking for.

The Coens had one of the biggest hits of their career with the music driven “O Brother, Where Art Thou” (the soundtrack was recently expanded and re-release to give you an idea of its ongoing popularity) and the prospect of the duo diving into the ‘60s folk rock scene is pretty exciting. No word yet on a start date or a distributor, but with TIFF coming up there will likely be more wheeling and dealing around the picture. Now we just gotta ask: can we have Cate Blanchett reprise her role as Bob Dylan?

“Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.” - Andy Warhol